Saturday, 26 July 2014

'Anti-Assad activists protest against a "selective internationalism" which opposes "the collective punishment and mass murder of Palestinians and Arabs in one land by one government and supporting or justifying their collective punishment and mass murder next door when a different government is the perpetrator".'When Ian Black says, "Reporting on it is difficult: Syrian visas for journalists are sporadic and access is strictly controlled. Reporting from the rebel side via Turkey is extremely dangerous," two things should be remembered. The régime has been happy to let in journalists that will support its narrative, or at least present it as a confusing mess we can't make any judgement of. And it is dangerous to report from the rebel side because the régime murders those journalists like Marie Colvin, who reported its massacres, and because there is no Western state really opposed to Assad, there is no particular pressure to report what is going on.

"Although the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and local revolutionary committees have fought to keep alive the vision of a secular and democratic Syria, armed Sunni jihadis, often bankrolled by Gulf sheikhdoms, have increasingly made the running militarily. "

You would take from Callinicos' formulation that the FSA and revolutionary committees are the only good people, while he refers to the Islamists in fairly racist terms, and you wouldn't get the impression that they have done much of the fighting against Assad, just that they are a stepping stone to ISIS. That Callinicos quotes Patrick Cockburn as an authority on the politics of the region shows quite how out of touch he is with the Syrian revolution.

'So often, I come across comments of non-Syrians saying the conflict in Syria is "too complicated" now because "the enemy" isn't clear anymore, so it's not worth defending. Choosing to be ignorant does not make your confusion justified. If the conflict in Syria is too complicated for you, stop talking about ISIS, stop talking about extremists, stop saying "civil war", stop talking about how "confusing" it is. Your silence is the most respectful thing you can do. You are not entitled to an opinion on a country whose conflict you haven't made an effort to untangle. There are people working hard, literally every day since the War began, educating themselves to educate those around them. Do not justify your apathy by saying the conflict is too complicated for you, this is solely your laziness. I assure you, the "enemy" is quite clear.'

Friday, 25 July 2014

So Cockburn thinks one example, when ISIS came in at the end of a siege with only a few dozen government soldiers left*, weighs more heavily in the evidence than the vast amount of fighting ISIS has done against the real rebels,and that their headquarters is never bombed."Predictably, the western media, diplomats and the "moderate" Syrian opposition claimed that Assad not only benefited from the existence of Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra but was secretly in league with them. "Notice Isis doesn't attack government forces," people would say with shallow cynicism in Beirut, though Isis was responsible for the capture of Minnigh military air base north of Aleppo, one of the few rebel victories last year."Robert Thouless writes in Straight and Crooked Thinking** of a trick used in argument of imputing to one's opponents a stronger proposition than they are defending. This is what Cockburn does here. ISIS has capitalised on the destruction wrought by Assad, and their continuity of interest means that only the real rebels have an interest in their defeat. It isn't Cockburn or the lizards, it is his insistence that the opposition in Syria is little more than the creation of the government in Washington that is the wacky conspiracy theory."But it has always been an absurd exaggeration to imagine, as your true-born conspiracy theorist would hold, that Isis and al-Nusra were the creation of the government in Damascus."*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Menagh_Air_Base]**[http://neglectedbooks.com/Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking.pdf]

"Progressive intellectuals, concerned citizens, and humanists were shocked on August 21st but they felt powerless. Their neutrality, under the pretext that both sides are evil, and their silences and inactivity allowed the Syrian regime to isolate and besiege the Syrian revolution. As the revolution became increasingly invisible, the regime’s narrative became more hegemonic. Many progressive intellectuals dismissed the revolutionary struggle of several hundred thousands Syrians in a myriad different arenas, and portrayed the situation as a civil war between Shia and Sunnis, a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, or a violent conflict between global Jihadists and a regular army. As the revolution became unthinkable, the regime propaganda turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sadly, in such a conjuncture the silence of progressive intellectuals became a license to kill Syrians."

Thursday, 24 July 2014

FYI, the Syrian people started a revolution, Assad started a warAbdulrahman al-Masri'To make it clear to you, simply as it is, the Syrian people started an uprising movement demanding freedom, dignity and political participation and so, the uprising quickly switched to be a public peaceful revolution spreading all over Syria.Someone sarcastically said: “Ha peaceful? But what is the free army?!!”Yes dude, a peaceful revolution. Dear, the Free Syrian Army is basically not an army, the FSA is an idea. The creation of the FSA came because of the Assad brutally reaction towards the revolution as a few officers in the Syrian Army decided not to kill their own people and refusing taking orders asking them to become monsters. The FSA started as “The Free Officers Movement” which includes army officers who defected and wanted to protect their people, it is a defense-armed groups not an organized army that in turn does not erase the peaceful nature of the revolution.'

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

EU Targets Syria Commander,Oil Companies"However, the EU's sanctions on Syria have faced a growing number of successful legal challenges in the bloc's top courts.EU judges have repeatedly ruled against the bloc's sanctions decisions, saying the member states have failed to provide confidential evidence that could back up their claims."They don't seem to be trying very hard. Can they find no evidence linking Colonel al-Hasan to the barrel bomb campaign, or do they just not care if the sanctions are applied?

Syrian death toll and extremist threat increases, but the U.S. does little"The Free Syrian Army forces the administration proposes to support are steadily losing ground to the regime and the Islamists. There’s a real risk that by the time the program gets off the ground — if it ever does — there will be no units left to support.It’s not easy at this late stage for the United States to intervene in Syria or Iraq in a way that would be constructive. But if one principle seems obvious, it is that moderate forces willing to fight the Islamic State should be aided — and quickly. Foremost among these are Syria’s secular rebels."

Ghayath Naisse

Some bits of this are good, explaining how the régime makes things unbearable in rebel held areas, so as to polarise society so that people think they would be worse off under rebel control. But as I read more, the sense I get is not that the military resistance to Assad's war on Syria should be supported, but that the military struggle is a terrible diversion from a non-violent class struggle that could solve problems in a jiffy.

The reverse is the truth. The revolution armed itself, because that was the only way to resist when the demonstrators were shot at by their government at every demonstration. When the government moved on to the massacres and rapes, it was only by military resistance that Sunni communities could be protected from a sectarian bloodbath. That's actually a truth you can find in this piece, "That means that even in the rebel areas any political activity needs to be protected," but if you didn't already know that, you wouldn't get that from here. The image is presented of a revolution that is nearly extinguished, precisely because it is all about armed men. I think a Marxist analysis would start from the fundamental instability of a régime that constantly erodes its social base, and has lost permanently the consent of most Syrians, how the position of Assad as a client of Russian imperialism leads to a coincidence of interests that might be exploited to overthrow him, how victories on the battlefield open up political opportunities to deepen the revolution, and ensure that no Syrian need ever fear torture for speaking their mind again.

Tuesday, 22 July 2014

Selective Internationalism: An Activist Disorder"The Saudi and Qatari monarchies are among the most reactionary forces in the world — are the FSA and the Islamic Front wrong or mistaken in accepting or seeking their patronage? How can any of these forces claim to be freedom fighters or revolutionaries given their backers? Don’t alliances with reactionary powers run counter to consistent internationalism?The erroneous assumptions embedded in these questions are that alliances are matters of morality rather than expediency, that political struggle is primarily about first principles rather than advancing the interests of living, breathing constituents, that it is impossible or impermissible for the oppressed and exploited to exploit contradictions between various camps of oppressors and exploiters to win freedom. The history of successful revolutions is a history of unusual and ugly alliances with morally revolting backers."

Art and Culture from the Frontline, edited by Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen, Nawara Mahfoud - book review: A moving testimony to dissidents fighting for democracy

'In his survey of revolutionary literature, the novelist Robin Yassin-Kassab mentions that Yazbek's reward from the regime for her literary courage was to be "walked through a display of meat-hooked and flayed torture victims".'

The FSA forces advanced from the Ghouta area, an eastern suburb of Damascus, to Abbasiyeen Square in the capital.

“It is unusual in recent times,” Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said. “In recent history the Syrian military and the extremists have been gaining ground and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

If the FSA had the same level of weaponry as the Assad régime or the Islamic State, it would be more powerful than either, as it has the support of Syrian people, and doesn't rely on foreigners to do its fighting.

I'm reminded of Clay Claiborne's post on the changing importance of Qusayr, Syria in the Media*:

'For more than a year, while it was a liberated area, it was a nothing, throwaway city as far as the media was concerned. Since Hezbollah conquered it for Assad and it is back in Syria government hands, the media cannot even print Qusayr without the "the strategic city of" prefix. This is one example of how the mainstream writes to support Assad and undermine the revolution without being up front about it.' *[http://claysbeach.blogspot.co.uk/…/the-changing-importance-…]

Aldi staff told shopper to empty his trolley because he was spending too much money on tinned food for children in SyriaHe seems to know more about Syria than all those commentators who tell us it is such a confusing situation that we have to blame Western interference for the suffering. There are people starving in Syria by the way, including Palestinians in refugee camps. Refugees because Israel forced them from their homeland, starving because Bashar al-Assad wants it that way."I was buying stuff to send over to Syria. I am not from there and never really knew anything about the situation but two weeks ago I started seeing all this stuff about these poor children going without food and had to resort to eating cats.For me that was utterly shocking and I thought I would get as much cheap tinned food as I could to send it over there. It was nothing to do with religion."

Idrees Ahmad: "I appreciate some of the things they do, but I refuse to share anything from Electronic Intifada, one of whose editors openly celebrated Assad's "re-election", or Mondoweiss, which promoted anti-Syrian victim-blaming conspiracy theories and refused to report on the situation in Yarmouk, or halfwits like Jonathan Cook who smeared me for getting the pro-fascist nun Mother Agnes booted from a "peace conference" in London, or the odious Mairead Maguire, who actually went on a solidarity tour with Assad. I no longer watch Democracy Now! after they gave Seymour Hersh a platform to promote his conspiracy theories unchallenged. They have yet to atone for it. Then there are those who use the Palestinian cause as a career. Their silence on Syria did not go unnoticed by me. I have only contempt for them. But they are too insignificant to be named. Let's confine ourselves to people whose principles are consistent. Thankfully, there are more than a few of them."